Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From Thailand: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less-Than-Fair-Value and Final Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-549-851]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From Thailand: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less-Than-Fair-Value and Final Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) determines that imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules (solar cells), from Thailand are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less-than-fair-value (LTFV) for the period of investigation (POI) is April 1, 2023, through March 31, 2024. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable April 25, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Stephen Bailey or Joshua Jacobson, AD/CVD Operations, Office IV, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-0193 or (202) 482-0266, respectively. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On December 4, 2024, Commerce published the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> in which we also postponed the final determination until April 18, 2025. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce invited interested parties to comment on the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> On March 24, 2024, Commerce issued a post-preliminary Particular Market Situation (PMS) Analysis Memorandum  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> in which we found a PMS exists for certain of TTL's solar inputs ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> wafers and solar glass) due to Chinese dominance of the solar cell input market in Thailand, which likely contributes to a input cost distortion or decline in the price below what the market-determined price is for inputs. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> We invited interested parties to comment on the PMS Analysis Memorandum. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From Thailand: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less-Than-Fair-Value, Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances, Postponement of Final Determination, and Extension of Provisional Measures,</E> 89 FR 96214 (December 4, 2024) ( <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> ), and accompanying Preliminary Decision Memorandum (PDM). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigation of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, From Thailand: Post-Preliminary Analysis of the Particular Market Situation Allegation,” dated March 24, 2025 (PMS Analysis Memorandum). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> at 21. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Briefing Schedule for Case and Rebuttal Briefs: Particular Market Situation Analysis,” dated March 25, 2025. </FTNT> A summary of the events that occurred since Commerce published the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> as well as a full discussion of the issues raised by parties for this final determination, may be found in the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> The Issues and Decision Memorandum is a public document and is on file electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS). ACCESS is available to registered users at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov.</E> In addition, a complete version of the Issues and Decision Memorandum can be accessed directly at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/public/FRNoticesListLayout.aspx.</E> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Issues and Decision Memorandum for the Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value in the Investigation of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled Into Modules, from Thailand,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Issues and Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigation</HD> The products covered by this investigation are solar cells from Thailand. For a complete description of the scope of this investigation, <E T="03">see</E> Appendix I. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope Comments</HD> During the course of this investigation, Commerce received scope comments from parties. Commerce issued a Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum to address these comments and set aside a period of time for parties to address scope issues in scope-specific case and rebuttal briefs. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from Cambodia, Malaysia, and Thailand: Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum,” dated November 27, 2024 (Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> We received comments from parties on the Preliminary Scope Decision Memorandum, which we addressed in the Final Scope Decision Memorandum. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> We made no changes to the scope of the investigation from the scope published in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> as provided in Appendix I to this notice. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Final Scope Decision Memorandum,” dated concurrently with this notice (Final Scope Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Verification</HD> Commerce conducted verification of the information relied upon in making its final determination in this investigation, in accordance with section 782(i) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). Specifically, Commerce conducted on-site verifications of the sales and cost information submitted by TTL. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> We used standard verification procedures, including an examination of relevant sales and accounting records, and original source documents provided by TTL. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Verification of the Cost Response of Trina Solar Science & Technology (Thailand) Ltd. in the Less Than Fair Value Investigation of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from Thailand,” dated March 6, 2025 and Memorandum, “Verification of the Sales Response of Trina Solar Science & Technology (Thailand) Ltd.'s U.S. Affiliate, Trina Solar (U.S.), Inc., in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigation of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Whether or Not Assembled into Modules, from Thailand,” February 28, 2025. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances</HD> Commerce preliminarily determined, in accordance with section 733(e)(1) of the Act, and 19 CFR 351.206, that critical circumstances exist with respect to imports of solar cells from Thailand for the mandatory respondent, Trina Solar Science & Technology (Thailand) Ltd. (TTL). Commerce also preliminarily determined that critical circumstances exist for all other exporters and producers of solar cells as well as for Sunshine Electrical Energy (Sunshine Electrical) and Taihua New Energy (Thailand) Co. Ltd (Taihua New Energy). For the final determination, pursuant to sections 735(a)(3)(A) and (B) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.206, we continue to find that critical circumstances exist for these companies. Based on our analysis of comments received regarding our affirmative preliminary critical circumstances determination, <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce continues to find that critical circumstances exist with respect to imports of solar cells from Thailand for these companies and all other exporters and producers of solar cells. For a full description of the methodology and results of Commerce's critical circumstances analysis, <E T="03">see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See Preliminary Determination</E> PDM at 6. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Analysis of Comments Received</HD> All issues raised in the case and rebuttal briefs submitted by interested parties in this investigation are addressed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum. A list of the issues addressed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum is attached to this notice as Appendix II. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Changes Since the Preliminary Determination</HD> We made certain changes regarding TTL's cost of production and sales data pursuant to our verification findings and post-preliminary finding of a particular market situation. For a discussion of these changes, <E T="03">see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Use of Adverse Facts Available</HD> As discussed in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> Commerce assigned an estimated weighted-average dumping margin on the basis of adverse facts available (AFA), pursuant to sections 776(a) and (b) of the Act, to the two companies ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Sunshine Electrical Energy and Taihua New Energy (Thailand) Co. Ltd.) that were unresponsive to the quantity and value questionnaire. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> There is no new information on the record that would cause us to revisit our decision in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> Accordingly, for the reasons explained in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> and consistent with Commerce's practice, as AFA, we assigned the highest non-aberrational individual transaction-specific margin on the record ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━